During the past couple of weeks I have not posted any new blog entries. What I have been doing instead is posting a series of articles on a reading comprehension technique called reciprocal teaching. For those who may not be familiar with this technique, reciprocal teaching is a research-based instructional model that was developed in 1984 by Annemarie Palinscar and Ann L. Brown. It is a method that utilizes four comprehension strategies—predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing—to help students construct meaning from text. The focus of reciprocal teaching is on the interactive dialogue between students. It is reciprocal in nature because students in a reciprocal teaching group take turns leading the discussion and guiding the group through the four strategies. I noticed in the Oct./Nov. Reading Today newspaper that Lori Oczkus has published a new...

Writing Trait/Strategy: Organization; text features Mentor Text Suggestions: nonfiction picture books Ranger Rick magazine National Geographic for Kids magazine Kids Discover magazine Description: Once students are aware of the differences between narrative and expository text, it is important for them to be exposed to the text features nonfiction writers use to most effectively communicate their information. I introduce these text features during a series of reading workshop minilessons to prepare them for a writing unit on nonfiction feature articles. After each text feature is introduced, students are asked to complete a page in their Text Features Booklets (see directions below). On some pages they glue in an example that I provide. On other pages they search their independent reading books for examples of that feature and draw or write them into the booklets. To...